


I cannot hold back your tide of bad decisions [discontinued - revamped, link in description]

by rosemaryblues



Category: Borderlands, Tales from the Borderlands - Fandom
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2016-10-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 08:38:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,531
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7750777
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rosemaryblues/pseuds/rosemaryblues
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>hi everyone!! i completely revamped this fic now actually and you can find it over at: http://archiveofourown.org/works/8277998/chapters/18963950</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rhys

**Author's Note:**

> College freshman Rhys is having a hard time. For as much as he's excited to be studying at Helios, the expectations and the ride down aren't quite as enjoyable as they seem. Hoping to make an entrance, he ends up with one undesired, but at the end of the day, he will never forget those blue-green eyes.
> 
> Content warning: emetophobia/vomiting, subtle transphobia/dysphoria, mentions of binding, mentions of vehicle crashes.

Today was the day.

Said words he had been repeating over and over in his head, expecting the cliché to somehow manifest excitement in the wake of his nauseating anxiety, but it did little to help. The sight of the cosmos rolling past his window, in all of their stellar beauty, were only a drilling reminder of the fact that he was going to be living for the next three years up in _space._

If it weren’t for the fact that being thousands of kilometres out of Eden-5’s atmosphere in a rocket did nothing but add motion sickness to the already disturbed concoction rolling about in his stomach, he might have found something to enjoy about the experience. His 6 months of mandatory astronautic training seemed to be doing little to help him adjust to the shift in gravity, but he wouldn’t put it past Hyperion that safety measures in the training weren’t as up to date as they seemed.

Rhys was rightly nervous, if not only for his life in that moment, but for the long term trek as well. It had only been a week since he had received the email confirming the date he was to be moving from his home planet to the campus located directly inside of Helios, and he felt as if a week wasn’t enough to help him come to terms that, _hell,_ he was going to be living inside of the central base for _Hyperion._

Worst yet, he doesn’t know a single person. Rhys didn’t exactly look it, but he had the work ethic to match his high-achiever attitude, and as a result, he had been the only one out of his small group of friends to actually make it where he was.

The ascending ride out of his star system and into another, the quiet chatter he could hear, minutely as it was, over the hum of the engines, a scene in which he alone seemed to not be enjoying. To distract himself from the fall of planets below him, he turned to observe what could potentially be his new classmates.

“Hm, fat kid in front row, jock wannabe to the right, blondie in the far corner-oh _hello_ blondie.” Rhys felt his throat go tight as the girl with pallid hair turned to the side, almost as if she could hear his quiet muttering. He turned back to the window out of embarrassment, finding he could only seem to focus on the distant galaxy outside.

He closed his eyes, trying hard to still the shudder in his mind, when he heard a commercial voice resound from a nearby speaker.

“Attention students, we are passing through an unavoidable meteor field, but you don’t need to worry! There is only a 45.8654% chance of the shuttle bus actually crashing and all of us dying in a semi-explosive, semi-claustrophobic death. That is, if the hull isn’t compromised and we aren’t all sucked out into space first! Please hang on tight, as it will be approximately 15 minutes until we pass through. …Oh, and before I forget, please do not use an Echo line, as the frequency may disrupt our bearings, and if they disrupt our bearings, then we will surely die! So if you need to call your family to say goodbye, please wait until after the journey, thank you!”

The entirety of the shuttle bus turned extremely quiet, and Rhys snapped his eyes open, only to see the first of the meteors soar past his window. It would have been a marvellous sight, had it not been for the proximity and the way the shadow passed over his window and flooded over his seat.

It was at this moment that he began to panic. He gripped tightly onto his chair, unable to hold back the nausea any longer. The vision in his eyes swam, and he keeled forward, feeling a cold sweat begin to form on his forehead.

His throat became raspy as his chest heaved, and only one thought became clear in the haze of his mind.

_This is it. This is how I’m going to die._

Or so he believed, as his chest began to seize and he felt a violent shock pulsate through his body, to which it surely meant he was being crushed right then and there. He heard voices, something like a high-pitched scream, and the next thing he knew there was a wastepaper basket in his lap and the lunch he had regrettably eaten only hours before was being thrown up inside of it. He would have missed, had it not been for someone’s unfamiliar hands moving his own to grip at the basket. The view of the plastic bag and the stench of his vomit only made him upchuck again, and he was grateful for the hand (was it the same person?) who was rubbing at the small of his back.

That’s when he heard the laughter, the cruel echo tugging at his ears and filling his now empty stomach with something like shame. He curled, oblivious to the voice in his ear that was being drowned out from the ringing inside of his head, and he sobbed, quietly and into the basket in hopes that nobody would hear him.

The hand eventually disappeared, as did the laughter, and he was left feeling cold and bitter as the gentle jingle overhead indicated that they had passed through the meteor shower mostly unscathed and that there was smooth sailing ahead.

Over the course of those next two hours, he didn’t lift his head once, preferring the smell and continuous rise of his own spew to the eyes he knew would be upon him if he moved.

He was the last to get off the bus, with the unsympathetic driver pushing him along and throwing the messy basket to the side in temper. Rhys stumbled behind the gathered crowd, clutching his stomach and using all of his willpower not to fall onto his shaking knees. The rest of the students were too fixated on the speaking guests standing by the loading dock entry to notice him, and he forced himself to look up at them.

One of the speakers was a lady in her mid-forties, who’s creepily chipper smile could have matched the voice on the pa’s from before, and the other was a younger man who could have been in his late twenties, his sleek black hair slicked to one side and the beginnings of a crude moustache growing above his lip. Both were dressed for Hyperion, with tight, crisp suits and designer shoes to match, the tell-tale H pin affixed neatly to their chests.

“Now, Hugo Vasquez has been with our company for a few years now, and is new to our management department, but he is one of few who Handsome Jack has addressed back in his beginning days. What an honour!” The woman seemed to quiver at her knees, a different kind of quiver that Rhys was sure his own legs seemed to be wobbling from when he heard the name “ _Handsome Jack”_.

The man known as Hugo Vasquez stepped forward, straightening his tie and flashing a businessman smile.

“That’s right, ladies and men. Handsome Jack himself has graced me with his presence. You could say we have somewhat of a, personal connection. If I do say so myself.”

He continued to make a round of the crowd, eyeing the gawking students with his lips pursued. “You too, could be visited by Handsome Jack, to bask in everything that he is. Why, you could say we’re on the edge” He spread his arms and gestured all around him. “Welcome to Helios, Jack’s monumental castle.”

Rhys suppressed the urge to snicker. As if Handsome Jack would visit somebody like this Vasquez guy. But, it’s not like Handsome Jack would have had anything like Rhys himself in mind either, he withdrew, scratching the back of his head gingerly.

The standing crowd eventually swayed into a tour, with Vasquez retreating after making his impromptu sleazy entrance, and they were assured, as they walked through the grandiose halls, that all of their luggage and belongings were being handled and imported to their respective rooms.

Rhys almost tripped over himself as they passed an employee lounge, where workers were gathered with coffee and clipboards and seated in the stiff and office cliché he had expected out of them. The nervousness began to creep back into his system at the thought of who his inevitable roommate might end up being.

He wasn’t sure if it was choice-based, something like a vote, or if he was to be randomly paired up with somebody else, as had been the norm in high school, but for somebody like him, the possibility filled him with nothing but dread.

As they made their way through the Hub of Heroism, Helios’ largest central area, he could have been wowed by the number of cafes, restaurants, bars and grills that they passed, but he was only more acutely aware of the large portion of people they were passing, all with eyes glued to him and to his skulking, lanky form.

His hands shifted from his stomach to his chest, and he felt even more exposed than before. He really hoped they wouldn’t notice through the baggy grey hoodie that he had put on as the best precaution he could think of. He had been pre-warned by a quick internet search that binding for 7 hours, and in cyberspace no less, would result in more bad than good.

He wondered about gendered dorms, if he would be able to get a room by himself or if Hyperion would acknowledge how he identified. He couldn’t risk outing himself to the entire freshman year, otherwise he would get worse commentary than the “that one guy who barfed on the way up” he was sure to come.

He tried to make what he could of the rest of the two hour tour, to which from the time of the trip up until now, he was sure it would have been nightfall back at home. His eyes felt heavy by the time they had finally reached the dorms on the lower levels. The tour guide, whose smile never waned, gave an exasperated “End of the line!” with a mad wave of her arms before she began to hand each student a set of room keys.

There could have been one good thing to come from all of this, that he had a chance to be roomed with the blonde-haired girl, but his hopes were dashed as she was handed a matching set with another girl who’s brown side-locks did little to hide her permissive scowl. He tensed up as the lady came to a stop in front of him, dropping rather than giving him the keys so that he almost dropped them himself, before passing on curtly.

He flipped over the leather strap on the keychain, reading a devoutly cursive 3 etched into its surface. Out of impulse he scratched at it, before beginning to finger it gingerly as he dropped his hand to his side, looking around for his room.

He was brought to attention again as the guide slapped her heel against the ground, garnering the rest of the crowd to look her way. She let out a cheerful “harrumph”, clearing her throat and batting her eyelashes.

“Welcome to the dorm rooms! The keys that I’ve given you indicate your room number, and who your new roommate will be! The boys hall is down the left, and the girl’s down the right.”

At the mention of the gendered dorms, Rhys felt his blood go cold.

A ginger-headed boy raised his hand, tilting his head in curiosity. “Uhh, miss? We haven’t filled out the forms for our roommates yet, though.”

The guide met him with a step-forward, her unwavering smile only increasing as she leaned forward and dangled a set of spare keys in front of his face. “You’re right! That’s because the evaluation has already been made! Hyperion ensures that you will have the best matches possible, gathering information from your records on file, and I’m here to affirm any final arrangements.”

“But-“

“It not only saves time, but it is another reminder of just how on-point and dedicated Hyperion can be! Isn’t that so?”

There was something almost neurotic in the way her tone changed pitch, and the boy seemed taken aback, managing only a small nod in response. The guide teetered back on her feet and spread her arm out one last time, signalling that the tour had indeed ended, and that the campus was now open as freely as the students wanted to explore.

There was an air of tension, broken by the parting of the masses as everyone began to disperse. He was rooted to the spot, feeling his breath come out in stunted gasps, something he tried to stifle in his hand as three people passed by him.

Without any warning, he was suddenly shoved, his knack for clumsiness becoming apparent as he miss-stepped and found his face impacting with the nearby wall. He fell backwards with a start, his head spinning all over again as he tried to comprehend the situation, only to hear a hoot of ugly laughter erupting from behind him.

“Watch where you’re going, vomit boy!” He heard a deep voice echo as it seemed to disappear down the hallway, indicating the invisible attacker had made a retreat before he could be recognized. Rhys straightened up, humility blooming across his face in an irritated scowl, and he went to kick the wall, only to be stopped by another voice, quieter this time.

“Uh, hey! Hold on, man. Calm down a little.”

Rhys’ grip tightened around his keys, and he flashed a glare up at the newcomer. His expression reeled back in surprise upon seeing him, and he had to lower his gaze to meet the shorter man’s one.

Green-blue eyes tilted with his slowly ascending smile, and he raised a hand to rub through his brunette tresses. He gave a nod, indicating towards the hand that held the keys, and Rhys tilted his head in curiosity.

The shorter man simply held up a pair of his own, the clearly marked 3 dangling in between two of his fingers.

“I think we’re roommates?”

“I—I think we are.”

 


	2. revamp --

for people who have bookmarked my series, i completely revamped the fic!! the new edition can be found [here](http://archiveofourown.org/works/8277998/chapters/18963950) + the link is in the description!!

 

**preview**

* * *

 

There could be no coincidences, Rhys knew, for them to become as tangled as they were. Clichés were something of a foreign concept to the man, and whether he could have depended on the way his heart skipped into his throat, the way his breath caught and he felt the world spin whenever he caught his eye was something he couldn't have ever possibly known.

Ambitious he was, forever reaching for something akin to stardom, unaware of the lack of lustre being amongst the stars truly held. All in all, he couldn’t figure out if Vaughn was the one who was pulling him back to the ground.

* * *

 

**end**

 

**Author's Note:**

> I have never been to college and I don't think I ever will, so this is my initiation and my progress through a world I know exactly 0% about. I love slowburn almost as much as I love college gayperion, and it finally got the better of me and I just had to write a fic about it. I can't believe I spent all night on this it's nearly 3am and I have a new job I need to go to tomorrow g o d
> 
> Also Rhys having a highschool mindset ie calling the guy wannabe-jock is intended bc hes still fresh from the nest


End file.
